A tender love story, a queer coming-of-age and a gripping mystery all wrapped into one in this YA graphic novel.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS
by Raphael Simon
illustrated by Phillip de León
Roaring Brook, Summer 2026
(via The Gernert Company)

Two queer love stories. Two time periods. One mystery.

Fifteen-year-old Noah lives with his father in New York but is spending the summer with his mother in Venice, CA. An indoor, city sort of person, a RuPaul fanatic, he’s miserable in the sun – until he meets Tomo, a surfer who works in his father’s vintage store. Tomo hands Noah an old composition-style notebook, filled with steamy diary entries by its teenaged owner, Diego, in addition to ephemera from the 1980s. Noah reads about Diego playing footsie in history class with closeted surfer (another surfer!) Casey until one day after school it becomes something more. Noah is enthralled. And there’s one more notebook at the store, but that’s it – Noah and Tomo have no idea what happened to Diego and Casey. And as they set off to find the much older surfer, the two boys find romance of their own…but can Noah keep from sabotaging the first good thing in his life?

Better known as Pseudonymous Bosch, Raphael Simon is the not-so-secret author of two bestselling middle-grade series, the Secret Series and the Bad Books, as well as the ALA Rainbow-Listed Unbelievable Oliver chapter-book mysteries. Most recently, Raphael published The Anti-Book, the first novel to appear under his own name.

Textile designer and illustrator Phillip De León worked as a creative in the advertising world before joining forces with his design partner and sister Nicole and their father Marcus to form the De León Design Group, and to direct the Los Angeles-based textile house, Alexander Henry Fabrics, Inc.